-Advantages of Content Anaylsis: Cheap, no involvement with people, reliable

-Disadvantages of Content Anaylsis:Mainly concerened with describing what is being studied, Interepretation may differ form one researcher to the next

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Primary and Secondary data

Quantitative Secondary Sources:

-Include a huge range of statistical data produced by groups like companies, charities, and pressure groups

-Major source of such data: OFFICIAL STATISTICS- Collected by the national and local goverment (Census data)

-Advantages of offical statistics: Important for planning & evaluating social policy, frequently only data available source of data, readily available and cheap, representative- Large sample, cover a long time span, allow intergroup & international comparisons, avoid ethical issues-publically available

-Disadavantages of official statistics: OS can't be taken at face valve-They are socially constructed- Maybe politically biased, produced by the state- May be "massaged", OS collected for administrative purposes rather than for purposes of sociological research, Interpretivists- Statistics are not objective facts but simply social constructions

EG: Suicide Statisics (Atkinson), Health statistics- inaccurate?, Crime statistics- Do not show full extent of crime in society